


Zephyr

by Silversheath



Category: Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Introspection, Weirdly ambiguous public relationship, a day in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 12:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silversheath/pseuds/Silversheath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't need to speak to communicate an "I love you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zephyr

Maybe their relationship is too ambiguous, even to each other.

It's one of the rare moments Michiru doesn't have Haruka at her side. One of the model students of Mugen Academy tugs at Michiru's sweater sleeve and hisses under her breath, voice carrying along the dim walls of the spotless hallways. "Are you Haruka's girlfriend?"

Michiru gazes down at her, knowing her smile is distant, bland. "No."

(When Haruka steps through the door to the apartment, she'll gawp when Michiru shoves her to the frame and tears at her uniform jacket, traces her jawline with a ferocious energy. She won't complain, just raise an eyebrow and sink downward willingly.)

"Oh," says the other girl, both taken aback and bizarrely hopeful. "Then I have a chance!"

"Most definitely," murmurs Michiru, and lengthens her stride so that the endlessly shorter student is swiftly left behind. Michiru flicks her flowing locks away from her cheeks and thinks about mirrors and hearts. She's picturesque.

(Haruka flirts with anyone. She is three thousand years bonded and roughly a hundred times familiar with Michiru's perfection, but that doesn't stop her from kissing Sailor Moon or making frisky advances on any girl; fan or senshi.)

The end of another school day and the imminence of the weekend doesn't have the same sense of finality ordinary students might enjoy. Michiru finds Haruka lounging languidly on the main stairs, strikingly handsome in her well-fitted men's uniform.

"The sea is stormy tonight," Michiru comments softly as Haruka straightens and flashes an uncharacteristic, wolfy half-grin. Her long fingers twitch in her pockets and Michiru finds herself smiling in return, wondering if the shared secrets shine through her eyes.

Haruka shrugs and visibly settles. She fits herself into Michiru's pace, sliding easily as the final puzzle piece, matching every surrounding shape and completing Michiru's picture.

(For her part, Michiru accepts suitors with grace, gently sidestepping offers of true love with a demur smile and perhaps a peck of gratitude. At least she gets to enjoy Haruka's fluttered sense of jealousy, and the humor in her denial.)

They don't need to speak often. It's strange. Michiru finds herself gathering tidbits throughout the day that she might share with Haruka, and immediately dismissing them when the time is prime for discussion. Something about the very presence of Michiru-and-Haruka - as a team presented to the darkness of the world - makes dialogue somewhat redundant.

They sip tea together in the dreary confines of the café, spaced ridiculously across the vast expanse of the - why is this table so large? - and even with her eyes carefully closed, Michiru knows Haruka is doing the same. Contemplating. Feeling that sense of completion in Michiru's soundless breathing.

Or maybe she's questing for a sense of wrongness in the city. A vision of sheer blackness swallowing structures, people howling as the upsurge crests and demolishes them.

Three people for the world. Fair trade.

(It's not like they're incapable of separation. Some missions clearly call for a single senshi or the particular talents of Michiru's social graces or Haruka's near-universal attraction. Michiru's got better connections, courtesy of her bloodline plus the old money, but Haruka's better at straight-out weaseling. They're both famous anyway.

They just work best together.)

The next day the two Outer Senshi catch up with Sailor Moon and her band of well-meaning, ditzy soldiers. They’re yelling at a clock-themed daemon, in the name of the moon. Uranus rolls her eyes.

The Inner Senshi get whacked with what might be a cuckoo clock's figurine head. Neptune raises her hand and Uranus intervenes, shaking the daemon and stunning her so Neptune can retrieve the pure heart.

She holds it out to Uranus when she's no longer distracted, and buries the disappointment when it's pronounced a normal pure heart. Scratch that. She avalanches it beneath hundreds of feet of ice, rocks, mud and dust, anything to lessen the impending fear. Time is running out.

Venus stands shakily and makes a vapid comment. Uranus smirks, every inch confidently cold. Sailor Moon entreats the pair for the heart, and Neptune's partner slings it back easily. They would usually depart then, but Neptune is filled to the circlet with anger, a fierce desire for action.

"Deep... Submerge!" She calls, and feels the wicked pump of power blow through her to the bones, the pure wave smashing through the clock-daemon and knocking it to the ground.

Then they leave it to buns-head.

(The first time Michiru had seen Haruka, it was almost uncomfortably similar to the first time Haruka had made her come, a strange mix of flawless pleasure woven with that now-familiar sense of wholeness, rising like the tide and trickling into her core with a offhand abandon. Hope and fate, presenting her with the dice she would throw for her destiny.)

Maybe the memory is too much.

It's fine to lean her body into Haruka's as they speed by the sprawling coastline, sunset dyeing the pale gold of the tallest woman's hair a bloody-orange. It's okay that she tucks her hands into Haruka's front pockets and kisses the exposed top knob of her spine, entirely reckless about publicity and identities and everything that makes Michiru's life that much harder.

It's alright, because Haruka's laugh trails along them like a breeze, and she shifts her foot on the pedal so they go faster and faster.

(Neptune has always loved Uranus. Uranus will always love Neptune. The sea will rise to the wind.)

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops, I character-studied again. Sighs.


End file.
